As I attend multiple search marketing related conferences and trade shows (SES, PubCon, etc.) every year, I always take a closer look at the speakers and how they present the information. One might put you to sleep while another gets you going as if you just drank 3 cans of Red Bull (peace of garbage in my opinion). Anyway,

I know it’s easy to critique when you’re not the one standing in front of a crowd trying to keep it together. I remember one of my first speaking engagements, and boy, was I nervous.

What I will do here is not make fun of speakers (well, maybe a little), but rather give suggestions from the listeners perspective that will help speakers sound better and thus bring more return on what they say. (ROWTS ?)

1. Reading from bullet points - I hate this and I am sure many will agree with me. If you’re doing a PowerPoint presentation please do not use it as a white paper. Bullet points are there for the speaker to stay on track with the different things they want to talk about. Reading your bullet points is not the best strategy. It’s quite boring.

2. No jokes? - Listen, I know when people attend a conference they pay for quality information that they can benefit from (and networking), we are still people and we do appreciate entertainment. Tell a joke related to what you’re saying. In PubCon Jake Baillie (who I believe to be a very entertaining as well as knowledgeable speaker) said something like .. “Don’t we just all want to know how to spam search engines” ? Nothing major right? But it was relevant and fun and it got the audience laughing. (Jake if I screwed up your line … let me know, I’ll correct it).

3. Nothing NEW - Please say something that has not been heard by the 90% of attendees before. As a speaker it’s your job to know a bit about who is going to be listening to you. It’s mind bugling when a speaker talks about how to start creating your AdWords account or how search engines look for relevant content.

4. Showing people what you’re reading as you speak - do not let your audience see something that you are actually reading out-loud. It doesn’t make sense. Should we listen to you or should we read this thing on the screen? Why are you reading it to us? This is very boring and kind of frustrating. I saw this being done quite a few times.

5. Surprise me - We follow blogs and forums and thus I can say that those that attend seminars are somewhat in the know of what’s going on in the industry. If you are speaking at the conference, try really hard to dig some information out that has not been out there for everyone to see. Surprise people with some revelations. Make them chat about what you said after the session is over. Did your company reveal an interesting test result that could surprise others? Tell us about it.

6. Stop shacking - if you’re nervous … show everyone a finger (in your mind) and start your presentation. Usually those speakers who don’t give a damn about what people might think of them perform much better than the ones who want to be sure they say things that are “politically correct” and please everyone. As a marketer you know it can’t be done. You can’t satisfy everyone.

7. Enthusiasm - you can always spot a speaker who is speaking with enthusiasm as it’s so contagious. If people see you be passionate and excited about what you are saying, they will listen closer. Talking about a subject you know is somewhat OK, but adding “natural” enthusiasm to your presentation makes it so much better. Why should I be excited to hear your speech if you’re not excited talking about it.

8. Make us work - why not ask a crowd something? Have them vote on something or show a hand if they believe in something. Do a quick poll. “How many of you are here only because we’re in Vegas and you only care about playing that blackjack table”? Then something serious … how many of you started before the year 2000 and so on. Not only will this tell you who you are speaking to but this information is interesting to the attendees as well. At one of the SES shows, Dana Todd (great speaker) asked a crowd “how many of you are just frustrated with the search engines?”. The timing was great as she did this right after 2 representatives from different search engines were hyping up their achievements. Fun stuff.

9. Monotone / Kill me now - Remember that commercial … “for clean eyes use clear eyes” or something like that. The guy who was saying it could put you to sleep if the commercial was more than 30 seconds long. Quite a few speakers do the same thing and unfortunately they have much more than 30 seconds. Even if what you’re saying is great and new and interesting … speaking without any vocal expression makes this great information seem boring.

10. Self promotion - People understand that most speakers are there to build a name for themselves or for their companies … but it should not be done through advertising right from the podium. I spoke to many people who were simply angry as hell after a 12 minute speech that spent 11 minutes on talking about the speaker’s company and what they do. We are marketers, we know when the commercial is on. We hate it when we have to hear it after forking over $1,300 to $4,000 (with travel expenses). Please don’t make people hate you for it. I remember at one of the conferences a speaker started with saying … “my company wants me to mention our name 4 times and talk a bit about what we do .. I won’t do that.” He finished a very interesting presentation and at the end showed the company’s web URL.

11. Give a bit of cash - At one of the SES shows, Tim Ash (President of SiteTuners) not only gave a good presentation but he made it fun. He took a couple of hundred dollars and started to give out $30, $50 etc dollars to those that guessed the right test result they have conducted. Was the information helpful … YEP. Was it fun because every one was on their highest alert? YEP!

12. Staying “Safe” - You can’t go wrong with statements such as “make sure you have a great product”, “be sure to create good content”, “search engines like relevant links pointing to your site”, etc. Problem is … we’ve all heard it a million times. Say something new even if it could be a bit controversial when applied to different industries. It’s OK, we are in the field where there is no exact science to all things done on search marketing. So someone will disagree … big deal.

What didn’t you like at the last conference you’ve gone to?